The Ditmar Award (formally the Australian SF ("Ditmar") Award, and previously the "Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award") has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention (the "Natcon") to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction (including fantasy and horror) and science fiction fandom. The award is similar to the Hugo Award but on a national rather than international scale

Eligibility to nominate

Nominations will be accepted from natural persons active in fandom, or from full or supporting members of the national convention of the year of the award. If you may not be known to the Ditmar subcommittee, please provide a brief explanation of why you are eligible (eg "Full member of Dudcon III"), or the name of someone known to the subcommittee who can vouch for your eligibility to nominate.

The 2010 awards cover the year 2009. I have published the following new stories by Australians in 2009:Sincerely, Petrified by Anna Tambour (Lovecraft Unbound)noveletteThe Tell by Kaaron Warren (Poe)short story

If anyone eligible to nominate would like to read either of these stories, please let me know and I'll email you copies.

Each year, the Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement in the field of horror writing, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work Dracula. Since 1987, the approximately 500 members of the HWA have recommended, nominated and voted on the greatest works of horror and dark fantasy of the previous calendar year, making the Stokers the most prestigious award in the field of horror literature.

Currently the awards are presented in eight categories: Novel, First Novel, Long Fiction, Short Fiction, Fiction Collection, Anthology, Non-fiction, and Poetry Collection. The organization's Active members will select the winners from this ballot; voting will close on March 3rd, and the awards will be presented this year at a gala banquet on Saturday evening, March 27, at the World Horror Convention in Brighton, UK.

Martyrs and Monsters by Robert Dunbar (DarkHart Press)Got to Kill Them All and Other Stories by Dennis Etchison (Cemetery Dance)A Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O'Neill (Apex Book Company)In the Closet, Under the Bed by Lee Thomas (Dark Scribe Press)

The Montauk Club is pleased to announce an evening celebrating H. P. Lovecraft, with readings from Lovecraft Unbound, edited by Ellen Datlow and published by Dark Horse. The reading will take place at 8 PM, January 15, 2010, in the historic 120 year-old Ballroom at the Montauk Club, 25 Eighth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn (adjacent to Grand Army Plaza).

The ticket price is free to club members and $5 for non-members; drink tickets for cocktails, wine, beer and non-alcoholic drinks can be purchased. There will be a social hour for attendees and participating authors after the reading. Seating is limited: please RSVP by January 14, 2010 to manager@montaukclub.com.

Anthology editor Ellen Datlow will introduce each of the four contributors from Lovecraft Unbound who will be reading from their stories, which are inspired by Lovecraft’s fiction. A pioneer of weird literature in the early 1900s, Lovecraft is best known for his development of the Cthulhu Mythos, a mixture of mythology and science-fiction tropes that explore other dimensions and the place of man in a hostile universe.

Ellen Datlow has been editing short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for over twenty-five years. She is editor or co-editor of a large number of award-winning original anthologies; most recently The Best Horror of the Year Volume One,The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Inferno, The Coyote Road, and Troll’s Eye View (the latter two with Terri Windling).

She has won multiple awards for her editing, including the World Fantasy, Locus, Hugo, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, and Stoker Awards. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for "outstanding contribution to the genre."

Brian Evenson is the author of ten books of fiction, most recently the story collection ugue State and the novel Last Days. His novel The Open Curtain was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award and was among Time Out New York's top books of 2006. Other books include The Wavering Knife (winner of the IHG Award for best story collection) and the tie-in novel Aliens: No Exit. He has received an O. Henry Prize as well as an NEA fellowship. He lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, where he directs Brown University's Creative Writing Program.

Michael Cisco is the author of four published novels: The Divinity Student, The Tyrant, The San Veneficio Canon, and The Traitor, as well as a collection of stories entitled Secret Hours. His short fiction has appeared in The Book of Eibon, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, Leviathan III, Leviathan IV, Album Zutique, Phantom, and Dark Wings. He is the recipient of the International Horror Writers Guild award for best first novel of 1999. Michael Cisco currently lives and teaches in New York. His website is: www.prostheticlibido.org.

Richard Bowes has written five novels, the most recent of which is the Nebula Award nominated From the Files of the Time Rangers. His most recent short fiction collection is Streetcar Dreams And Other Midnight Fancies from PS Publications. He has won the World Fantasy, Lambda, International Horror Guild, and Million Writers Awards.

Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of eight novels, including the award-winning Silk and Threshold, along with Low Red Moon, Daughter of Hounds, and, most recently, The Red Tree. Her short fiction has been collected in Tales of Pain and Wonder; From Weird and Distant Shores; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; and A is for Alien. Two volumes of her erotica have been released -- Frog Toes and Tentacles and Tales from the Woeful Platypus -- with a third volume, Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, due out in 2010.

The Montauk Club is a historic landmark in Park Slope, Brooklyn, designed by architect Francis H. Kimball in a unique combination of Venetian Gothic and Native American motifs. Its splendid interiors are host to a diverse number of cultural programs, including readings, art shows, lectures and symposiums. We are glad to host this evening of some of America’s finest fantasy authors in homage to an unclassifiable master of the weird, H. P. Lovecraft. We hope you can join us!

I could discuss individual stories all day, but to wrap up, Lovecraft Unbound is a fine and fascinating anthology full of very good stories, and it’s well worth your time and attention, so long as you don’t go into it expecting to find too many of the usual trappings of Mythos tales.

Also, I'll be hosting and Brian Evenson, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Michael Cisco, and Richard Bowes will be reading from Lovecraft Unbound at the Montauk Club in Brooklyn, Friday, January 15th. Books will be sold and there will be a tour afterward of this historic building....More details later.

I was going to be going to Maine Thursday for a long weekend, but instead because my dad fractured his hip Monday night and is having surgery tomorrow (Wed) morning, I'm flying down to Florida tomorrow for at least a week. Don't know how things will go as he's 93. I'll be online as time and interconnectivity allows.

I'm staying with friends for today and tomorrow and we've finally fixed the wireless problem (couldn't get online on my machine last night or this morning)-I've been hooked directly into their cable network downstairs. Yay!

So as you must all know, I lost the WFA to Paper Cities, edited by Ekaterina Sedia and published by my friend and colleage (KGB) Matt Kressel. I'm delighted for them. Of course, I'd have loved to have won the award for one of my two anthos but I'm honored for the last YBFH and The Del Rey Book of SF&F to have been in the running. (particularly because the latter was NOT only fantasy but sf). And there's always next year for my 2009 anthologies.

Which brings me to the exciting news that Lovecraft Unbound has been listed as one of the five best sf/f/h books of the year by Publishers Weekly. Congratulations to my contributors. The whole list is:

The Windup GirlPaolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)-Bacigalupi's powerful debut warns of dire ecological collapse and the evils of colonialism in an eerily plausible near future Thailand.

The Devil's Alphabet Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)--This subtle, eerie present-day horror novel mercilessly dissects and reassembles the classic narrative of a man returning to his smalltown birthplace, where the familiar folks have become strange creatures.

The City & the City China Miéville (Del Rey)--Putting a quasi-fantastical twist on a classic police procedural story, Miéville delves deep into the psyches of city dwellers and the ways people blind themselves to reality.

BoneshakerCherie Priest (Tor)--The dramatic first novel in Priest's Clockwork Century universe sends a determined 35-year-old single mom into a ruined city full of zombies and poison gas, where she must save her son from a mad inventor.

Tonight's the mass signing at Borderlands in SF 7pm for anyone in the neighborhood.

To celebrate Samhain (or Hallowe'en if you prefer) we will feature an extracurricular event to celebrate the publication of Ellen Datlow's latest anthology, LOVECRAFT UNBOUND. Making the occasion even more special, our venue will be the Soho Gallery for Digital Art, opening this very same night. We'll be meeting in the gallery itself, but please note they have an Underground which may best be described as... eldritch.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft may have been a writer for only a short time, but the creations he left behind after his death in 1937 have shaped modern horror more than any other author in the last two centuries: the shambling god Cthulhu, and the other deities of the Elder Things, the Outer Gods, and the Great Old Ones, and Herbert West, Reanimator, a doctor who unlocked the secrets of life and death at a terrible cost. In this, Ellen Datlow's latest anthology, more than twenty of today's most prominent writers of literature and dark fantasy tell stories set in or inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Four of them will read for this special event.

-- Richard Bowes has written seven books and has won the World Fantasy, Lambda, International Horror Guild, and Million Writers Awards. Recent and forthcoming stories appear in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Electric Velocipede magazines, and in the DIGITAL DOMAINS, BEASTLY BRIDE, HAUNTED LEGENDS, and NAKED CITY anthologies. His story "If Angels Fight" was selected for five of the year's best anthologies and is currently nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Most of these stories are chapters in his novel in progress, DUST DEVIL: MY LIFE IN SPECULATIVE FICTION.

Elizabeth Bear is the multiple-Hugo-award-winning author of over a dozen novels and fifty short stories, including BY THE MOUNTAIN BOUND, CHILL, and THE WHITE CITY. Her attraction to Lovecraft began with his short story "Cool Air." She lives in Connecticut with a presumptuous cat and a giant ridiculous dog.

Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of several novels, including LOW RED MOON, DAUGHTER OF HOUNDS, and, most recently, THE RED TREE. Her short fiction has been collected in Tales of Pain and Wonder; Wrong Things; From Weird and Distant Shores; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; A is for Alien; and, forthcoming from Subterranean Press in 2010, The Ammonite Violin & Others. Her "weird erotica" has been collected in FROG TOES AND TENTACLES and TALES FROM THE WOEFUL PLATYPUS; a third volume, CONFESSIONS OF A FIVE-CHAMBERED HEART, will be released next year. Born in Ireland and raised in the Deep South, she now lives in Providence, Rhode Island. I'm afraid Caitlin had to cancel.

Michael Cisco is the author of the novels THE DIVINITY STUDENT, THE TYRANT, THE SAN VENEFICIO CANON, and THE TRAITOR, as well as a collection of stories entitled SECRET HOURS. His short fiction has appeared in The Book of Eibon, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, Leviathan III and IV, Album Zutique, Phantom, and Dark Wings. He is the recipient of the International Horror Writers Guild award for best first novel of 1999. Michael currently lives and teaches in New York.

Ellen Datlow has been editing short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for over twenty-five years. She is editor of THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR and has edited or co-edited a large number of award-winning original anthologies; most recently THE DEL REY BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, POE: NEW TALES INSPIRED BY EDGAR ALLAN POE, as well as THE COYOTE ROAD and TROLL'S EYE VIEW (with Terri Windling). She has won multiple awards for her editing, including the World Fantasy, Locus, Hugo, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, and Stoker Awards. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for "outstanding contribution to the genre."

-- The New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series is celebrating its 20th season of providing performances from some of the best writers in science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, etc. The series continues to evolve, but is always providing readings in the writers voice from some of the great luminaries in literature, genre favorites, and rising stars.

Jim Freund is Producer and Executive Curator of The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings. He has been involved in producing radio programs of and about literary sf/f since 1967 when he began working at New York City’s WBAI, 99.5 FM at age 13. His long-running live radio program, “Hour of the Wolf,” continues to be broadcast every Saturday morning from 5:00 to 7:00, and is streamed live on the web. Archives of past shows are available "'on-demand" for about 8 months after broadcast. (Check http://hourwolf.com for details.)

The SoHo Gallery for Digital Art is a new Soho art gallery dedicated to re-establishing SoHo as the center of new artistic forms, concepts and ideas. Opening this same night, the SGDA will be presenting art from around the country and around the world using a screens-instead-of-canvases approach to bring attention to digital art and photography to the New York public that would otherwise receive little or no attention, as well as throwing numerous evening events devoted to the digital, visual, and literary arts and staging various cultural events. Under the name SULLIVAN HOUSE, the gallery will be available as a uniquely versatile space for parties and events.

---WHEN:Tuesday, 10/27/9Doors open at 6:30 -- event begins at 7Admission is by a $5 donation. If circumstances make this a hardship, let us know and we will accommodate you.

The New York Review of Science Fiction magazine is celebrating its 20th year!Subscribe or submit articles to the magazine! New York Review of Science Fiction PO. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY, 10570 NYRSF Magazine: http://nyrsf.com

A rave by Martin Andersson in forthcoming Dead Reckonings--I'm quoting a bit from it:

"....a sterling Lovecraftian anthology that surely ranks with the best in the field. Its connection with the Cthulhu Mythos is only tangential, even though one familiar name or another crops up, which makes for a book that focuses on those more intangible qualities of Lovecraft’s work, such as the fascination of infinite cosmos and dread of the unknown and the sense of wrongness that permeate his best stories."

and: "Datlow has created an excellent mix of tentacles and cosmicism, with emphasis on the latter, that should prove that the field of Cthulhuian and Lovecraftian fiction is indeed capable of producing imaginative literature worthy of attention."

The 16 new and four reprint stories Datlow (Poe) assembles for this outstanding tribute anthology all capture what Dale Bailey praises as horror master H.P. Lovecraft’s gift for depicting the universe as “inconceivably more vast, strange, and terrifying than mere human beings can possibly imagine.” Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud, in “The Crevasse,” evoke this alien sensibility through an Antarctic expedition’s glimpses of an astonishingly ancient prehuman civilization preserved in the polar ice. Laird Barron’s “Catch Hell” depicts a Lovecraft-type backwoods community in the grip of a profoundly creepy occult mythology. Selections range in tone from the darkly humorous to the sublimely horrific, and all show the contributors to be perceptive interpreters of Lovecraft’s work. Readers who know Lovecraft’s legacy mostly through turgid and tentacled Cthulhu Mythos pastiches will find this book a treasure trove of literary terrors. (Oct.)

I'm going to email the ms of Lovecraft Unbound to my editor today, as soon as he lets me know if he wants it in pieces or in one BIG file. (of course, I'll have to format the thing if he wants the latter). I put the stories in order.

And I've just finished agonizing over my introduction. I believe I've mentioned before how much I hate writing anything, including introductions to my anthologies. I'm not a critic, I'm barely a reviewer and yes, I realize that for most introductions I have little substantial to say. However, I personally dislike anthologies that do not have introductions. My publishers expect introductions. So I write them to the best of my ability.

I wasn't able to snail mail the contracts and Chabon printout to my editor because I had trouble photocopying the story from YBFH-the damned pages have so little top and bottom margin that invariably I wasted (and paid for) a lot of paper and then forgot the last 5 pages. So yesterday, I took the book in to Staples and they're doing those last pages. So that likely won't go out till Monday if I can get to the post office.